November 11, 2013

Stephen Jones begs to differ: Cowboys did take shots with Dez Bryant against Saints

Executive vice president Stephen Jones said the Cowboys did
take shots at a double-covered Dez Bryant on Sunday night against the Saints.

“It starts with that,” Jones said on his weekly radio
appearance on KRLD 105.3 FM “The Fan.” “You’ve got to make them pay a price
somewhere else. I still think, inevitably, you’ve got to take your shots, which
we did last night. We had a couple of throws to Dez, one I think he had two
guys beat and just overthrew him, and then another one obviously made a great
play, came up with the ball. So we took a couple of shots with him. We’ve got
to continue to do that, if not a little more.”

Bryant, the Cowboys’ top receiver and touchdown leader, had
two targets in the 49-17 loss. The one catch went for 44 yards. The fourth-year
receiver has eight touchdown catches but has been held out of the end zone in
four of the last five games.

Jones said the Cowboys can fix that problem in part by
balancing the offense.

“We’ve got to run the ball more. We’ve got to run it better.
We’ve got to put ourselves in some good situations to be able to convert on third
down,” he said. “We’ve just got to continue to find the right chemistry. When
they do double Dez, we’ve got to have some guys win some matchups. I think
we’ll get better. I think our guys certainly are not satisfied with where they
are, certainly think that we can get better on that side of the ball.”

Jones said when the Cowboys start executing the running game
better, the offense will get better.

“I think it will all start if we can run the ball,” he said.
“I think we saw glimpses of that early, but unfortunately, New Orleans was very efficient on their side
of the ball and we got behind, and of course we all know what can happen: you’re
looking at a pretty good deficit on the road, you feel the need to throw the
ball more. Unfortunately, it didn’t work for us last night.”